​In early 2015 the European Committee of the Regions decided to set up a task force with local authorities from Ukraine with an idea to exchange best practices on decentralisation and discuss other relevant topics, such as territorial cooperation and regional policy. Since the beginning of this project, First Vice President of the European Alliance group and member of the Gdynia City Council Stanisław Szwabski has played an important role in contributing to its work in particular in the areas of decentralisation, local government reform and capacity building.

An important next step in the cooperation with Ukrainian local authorities is the development of peer to peer initiative where cities and regions from the European Union can give valuable advice to their counterparts in Ukraine on a number of specific topics, with current focus being on public service training, education and local economic development to name but a few.

The CoR Task Force on Ukraine met in Brussels on 8 March and is scheduled to have its next meeting in Ukraine in September.